I pause now to assert my bona fides. I got my first union card while still in college and remained a member of the Newspaper Guild throughout my career, paying dues even when I no longer had to. I can whistle union ditties, and I swell with pride at the ancient picture of my grandfather, posed with his good friend, the union organizer.

Some of his best friends are in unions. Sheesh.

Speaking for me only

Via digby, the Joe variety:

[I]t seems to me that Governor Scott Walker's basic requests are modest ones [. . .]

I'm no expert in the field, but I'm thinking that asking a union to give up the right to collectively bargain is pretty much the opposite of a "modest request." But, I'm sure Klein will 'have a lot more to say on this issue -- but first [he'll] have to learn more about it."

Speaking for me only

Here is Beltway Blogger Ezra Klein rewriting history in order to pretend raising taxes is juuust tooo hard:

As we've seen a couple of times now, when deficit reduction comes into conflict with tax cuts, tax cuts win. They win, in fact, every time, and have won every time since Ronald Reagan.

That's just false. Of course Bill Clinton raised taxes, and on the rich. Now Ezra Klein knows this. What is his interest in writing this falsehood? My guess is it is to excuse the "Grand Bargain" he suspects the Obama Administration may be embarking upon.

And in order to do this, Ezra Klein has to pretend Bill Clinton's 1993 tax increases on the rich never happened.

Speaking for me only

Making the point that bloggers are NOT in fact the base of the Democratic Party (duh), Matt Yglesias writes:

I often thought during the health care debate that poor people would be saying “hell no I’m not going to give up this Medicaid expansion so you can hold out indefinitely for a public option.”

Funny, I often thought during the health care debate that less well off people should be saying "hell no I'm not going to give up a public option for those sh*tty exchanges Beltway Bloggers love." Different strokes I guess.

Speaking for me only

Lady Gaga arrived in an egg. The Grammys may be worth watching just for her. Update: She was pretty awesome. I loved the choreography.

Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson, Martina McBride, Florence and the Machine (and one other) open with a tribute to Aretha Franklin.

If you're watching, here's a place to share your thoughts.

Mick Jagger will perform at the Grammy's tomorrow night for the first time. He and Raphael Saadiq will do a tribute to Solomon Burke, who died in October, 2010 at age 70.

The clip above has Burke and the Stones performing together, and also has their comments about him. Here's the Stones performing the same song in 1965.

Also performing tomorrow night: Bob Dylan and Barbara Streisand (not together.)

And of course, there will be Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Katie Perry, Eminem, Jay Z and many more.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

As TechHerald reports, among th[e] documents was a presentation, “The Wikileaks Threat,” put together by three data intelligence firms for Bank of America [. . .] They suggested that Glenn Greenwald’s support was key to WikiLeaks’ ongoing survival.

One of those listed as a volunteer, Salon.com columnist, Glenn Greenwald, was singled out by the proposal. [. . ]“Glenn was critical in the Amazon to OVH transition,” the proposal says, referencing the hosting switch WikiLeaks was forced to make after political pressure caused Amazon to drop their domain.

As TechHerald notes, an earlier version of the slide said support from people like Glenn needed to be “attacked.”

Keith Olbermann is going to Current TV where he'll host a one hour nightly news show and serve as Chief News Officer.

Why? Will he offer anything different enough from what you can get elsewhere to make you learn a new channel number and tune in and watch? I think he'll disappear. Seems more than a bit like Dan Rather going to HDNet after leaving CBS. In case you missed John Stewart's take on MSNBC and Olbermann's leaving, it's below: [More...]

In the odd couplings department, AOL has just paid $315 million for The Huffington Post. It's more like a merger, and the whole shebang will be run by Arianna Huffington.

The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.

I actually like the idea, but then, I'm one of the few people I know who still uses an AOL e-mail account. So aside from the merger reassuring me that AOL isn't going out of business anytime soon, what does it mean for the news, other than a behomoth conglomerate? [More...]

Dana Carvey hosts SNL tonight. Jon Lovitz appears during the monologue. Mike Myers shows up in the opener to do Wayne's World (video here.) Carvey also brings back The Church Lady.

Justin Bieber will make a (not very) surprise guest appearance (as part of the Church Lady skit) and Linkin Park is the musical guest.

It hasn't started here yet, but that's what's running on Twitter right now, and the reviews are good.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Update: Congratulations, Ed Sabol! The Hall of Fame Class of 2011: Richard Dent, Marshall Faulk, Ed Sabol, Chris Hanburger, Les Richter, Deion Sanders and Shannon Sharp. Video telling NFL Films story with Steve Sabol (already wearing his red socks) accepting award for his father here.

Update: Live: Ed Sabol makes the final 10. Other 9 are Dawson, Dent, Faulk, Kennedy, Martin, Reed, Roaf, Sanders and Sharpe. Now waiting for them to get down to 5.

Bump and Update 2/5/10: 4:30 pm MT: The meeting lasted 7 hours and 27 minutes. Announcements in 30 minutes. You can watch Steve Sabol discuss his dad's potential induction here. They will all be wearing red socks at the Superbowl in honor of his dad, including the Commissioner. (His dad wears red socks when watching the Superbowl every year. Steve said 130 people will tomorrow.)[More...]

Via Digby:

Anderson Cooper: if your crew is getting beat up in riots in every country you go to-might that suggest UR the 1 doing something wrong?

-Jay Newton-Small [Time magazine reporter]

What's interesting about this is not only that Newton-Small claims to be a journalist, but that her magazine is owned by the same company that owns CNN. I guess solidarity, journalistic or corporate, is not something Newton-Small adheres to.

Open thread.